The weeklong program tackles one of the most difficult issues facing companies today — executing on strategy.

“Research and experience has shown that many strategies and initiatives don’t get implemented properly,” notes Nicolaj Siggelkow, the program’s faculty director and co-director of the Mack Institute for Innovation Management at Wharton. In fact, a recent survey of 400 global leaders identified executional excellence as the number one challenge facing corporate leaders in Asia, Europe, and the United States.

Siggelkow says often what hinders effective execution are two barriers — motivation and resources. “Motivation includes a wide range of issues: How is our strategic leadership supporting the new idea? How much is the new strategy aligned with our corporate culture? Are our incentives systems and our organizational structure conducive to implementing the new strategy? On the resource side, it’s not only whether we have the right assets and human capabilities, but also the right abilities to learn and adapt. Because clearly, effective execution is not just a fixed plan we execute, but it’s a whole learning process.”

Wharton’s program takes a systematic approach of how firms and individuals can overcome these challenges. The program features faculty presentations on topics of culture, leadership and incentive programs to help managers implement a strategy.

“We bring faculty from a wide diversity of backgrounds, thinking about culture, thinking about leadership, thinking about incentive systems that will really help you execute an initiative or strategy for your organization,” says Siggelkow.

Session topics include:

The Impact of Culture on Implementation

Barriers to Organizational Change

Strategic Leadership

Implementing Through Teams

Cognitive Biases Affecting Implementation

Organizational Design

Talent Management

Accessing Resources from Outside the Organization

Participants are asked to bring a critical execution issue in their own organization, for instance, a new strategic initiative, to the program. Over the course of the program, participants gain tools and frameworks that will help them apply course learnings to address this issue and to develop an actionable plan. Moreover, they leave the program with a toolkit to help them address execution obstacles they may face in the future.

Specifically, participants will have the opportunity to:

Consider strategy execution from a range of lenses, including leadership, organizational culture, talent management, and capabilities

Understand how to get buy-in, clarify responsibility and accountability, and create proper incentives

Learn how to develop and access the necessary resources for implementation regardless of whether they are located inside or outside the organization

ABOUT THE WHARTON SCHOOL

Founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is recognized globally for intellectual leadership and ongoing innovation across every major discipline of business education. With a broad global community and one of the most published business school faculties, Wharton creates economic and social value around the world. The School has 5,000 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students; more than 9,000 participants in executive education programs annually and a powerful alumni network of 95,000 graduates.